Hi! I'm Lizzie, the Climate Positive and Sustainability Lead at Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust. I joined the Trust in October 2021 to help the charity become a climate positive organisation; meaning that we will aim to reduce our emissions to less than the amount of carbon sequestered by the natural habitats on our nature reserves. My role therefore involves working to reduce our operational emissions, as well as focusing on how nature-based solutions are integral to combatting climate change. 

Our targets 

At the Trust, we have set the targets to have net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, and net negative emissions by 2030. This means that we are aiming to reduce our emissions to the level of, and then to less than, the amount which is sequestered by the natural habitats in our nature reserves.  This is what we mean when we say we are aiming to be climate positive, reducing our emissions to net negative, having a positive impact on the climate. 

What are we doing? 

We are monitoring our carbon footprint annually so that we can keep track of how our carbon footprint is changing. This is particularly important at the moment, with changes to our activities due to the pandemic. We will continue to monitor how our carbon footprint changes as we reach our emissions targets, to ensure we maintain our low emissions and keep working to reduce them. 

We monitor as much of our emissions as we can, including both direct and indirect emissions across scopes 1 to 3, which are explained below.   

• Scope 1 (Direct) emissions: These are the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions wholly owned and controlled by the Trust. They include oil, grid gas, fuel for fleet vehicles and equipment and bioenergy.  

• Scope 2 (Indirect) emissions: These are the emissions from the generation of purchased or acquired electricity, steam, heating or cooling that are consumed by the Trust.  

• Scope 3 (Indirect) emissions: This includes all other indirect emissions which are not owned by the Trust, linked to operations and occur both upstream and downstream in the value chain. Examples include emissions from home working, staff commute, waste, livestock and other procurement. Most of our emissions fall under this category. 

We are also working to calculate our land-based emissions, so we can ensure that they are maintained in a way that maximises both biodiversity and carbon sequestration. Restoring and maintaining our natural environments will tackle both the nature and climate crises together. 

Transport related emissions have been one of the larger parts of our carbon footprint, and as a result, we are working to encourage staff to improve the sustainability of their commute as well as putting the infrastructure in place to allow for a transition to electric vehicles. We now have two electric vehicle charging sockets at our main office and hope to install them at other sites in the future.  

We will continue to work to reduce our energy consumption, undertaking audits to better understand how we can make changes. We have already made the switch to a renewable energy provider to reduce our emissions. 

Staff engagement is key and it has been great to see the sharing of ideas and involvement with our calculations. The changing of behaviours is an important part of climate action and keeping up engagement will help to reduce our emissions in all areas from energy use and waste to transport and home working. 

It has also been wonderful to be involved in conversations across national The Wildlife Trusts movement, discussing and sharing ideas with other Trusts to work together in achieving our goals. 

I am looking forward to sharing our progress with you, as we work to reduce our emissions and become climate positive!